LETTER: Stop the Willits bypass now!

The Highway 101 Willits bypass is a project that needs to be stopped now. Unless action by your office is taken immediately, the pristine Little Lake Valley will be very negatively impacted.

CalTrans' solution to the traffic problems in Willits is to spend $300 million on a project that is too big and wreaks environmental havoc in my valley. Willits has traffic bottlenecks in summer months and during peak usage. But according to Caltrans's own study, three-quarters of the traffic in Willits is local. A better solution can be built for a fraction of the project's estimated cost.

CalTrans has dreamed of a four-lane Highway 101 corridor since the 1950s. At one time this was a reasonable vision. In today's world it is a nightmare. Traffic has not increased as CalTrans predicted. The environmental damage of a bypass is incalculable. There will be a loss of habitat for endangered plants and fish in the surrounding Little Lake Valley. The costs are prohibitive. A simpler $80 million solution would a two-lane ground level truck route around Willits.

The proposed bypass will be on a raised causeway, part of which will be on an elevated 22-foot-high berm and part on a viaduct. Picture the raised section of Highway 5 north of Sacramento that runs over the rice fields. Millions of cubic feet of soil will be excavated from surrounding hills for this purpose. The pilings for the viaduct will take three years to build.

The project has been approved and permitted. However, CalTrans has violated some of its permits. Many important issues have not been addressed. That is why four environmental organizations and the Farm Bureau filed a suit to stop the project. A federal injunction has been denied. The case will not be heard until June 7.

Imminently, CalTrans will begin cutting down beautiful heritage oaks in preparation for the project.

The original EIR examined a set of circumstances very different from the current project. It was for 60 acres of mitigated lands and a four-lane bypass. Now the project is for eighteen hundred acres and a two-lane bypass, albeit with the same footprint. A new EIR is needed.

The Farm Bureau estimates that the proposed bypass will result in 2,000 aces of prime grazing land being taken out of productivity and allowed to revert to a feral state. This is unacceptable for two reasons. First, ranchers require acreage for grazing cattle and hay production. Any loss of income from agriculture will impact our community. Second, a feral grass wildlands in close proximity to Willits could pose extreme fire danger.

In order to build the proposed bypass, CalTrans will destroy wetlands and with it, Baker's Meadowfoam, a federally listed endangered species. CalTrans has a failure rate of about ninety percent when it comes to creating viable wetlands suitable for the Meadowfoam. It is doubtful that these unique wetlands will be mitigated.

The Willits bypass project will also threaten endangered fish populations. The waters that flow through the Little Lake Valley are an important headwater of the Eel River, a Coho salmon and steelhead spawning ground. For many years, multiple agencies have worked hard to replace culverts and clean out debris in the local creeks to encourage fish populations to return to their historic spawning grounds. Their efforts have been successful. This has been a record spawning year. We must stop environmentally dangerous projects that damage these fish populations.

The proposed viaduct will not have lateral access for many miles and in the event of a vehicular collision, lanes could be blocked for an extended period of time. Emergency vehicles will be forced to drive along surface streets in order to enter the bypass from the north or the south. This means an extended delay for victims of an accident.

The Highway 101 Willits bypass is an unnecessary fiscal waste and an environmental disaster.

We have lived in Willits for a long time. We can wait a little longer for a common sense solution to the Willits traffic problem. Please stop this project now.